An 11-year-old boy is in critical condition and his mother and another woman were taken into custody after what police describe as a beating at a west-end Toronto apartment.


Police responding to reports of a fight from neighbours were called to an apartment building on Eva Road — near Burnhamthorpe Road and The West Mall in the west-end neighourhood of Etobicoke — at around 1:15 a.m. ET Friday.


They smashed through the glass door at the building's entrance to get to the 12th-floor apartment, and found the boy with cuts and bruises.


A neighbour told CBC News that her sister-in-law heard the commotion and called police, who were already en route to the building.


"She heard someone screaming, someone hurting," the woman told CBC's Trevor Dunn.


Boy to undergo surgery


The boy was taken by ambulance to the Hospital for Sick Children, where he is scheduled to undergo surgery on Friday.


Shortly after the boy was taken away by ambulance, two women left the building in police custody. Police expect one of the women will be released later Friday.


Neighbours say the boy lived in the apartment with his mother, an older sister and a younger brother.


Two other children in the apartment were also taken away.


Neighbours told CBC News that one of the women under arrest was behaving strangely as she was taken into custody.


“She was in the back of the cruiser and blowing kisses and smiling, like she was on drugs or something," a man told CBC.


There is no word on charges, but police are in the process of obtaining a warrant to search the apartment.


The Children's Aid Society has also been contacted.


With files from CBC's Trevor Dunn